When Push Comes To Shove (NickxOC)
by ALostWinchester
Summary: Nick and Cassie have been searching for her mother for five months and have heard nothing from Kira since Hong Kong. On American soil again, they find Larabell, a Mnemonic (memory eraser) who wonders if Cassie's unfaltering certainty that her mother is alive and in Division is really just a Push. (Rated T but may contain M later)
1. Chapter 1

Cassie furiously slapped another page around the spiral of her notebook to the back of the stack of black paper and started another drawing of the same thing. Her hand fell to it's task so hard that her little pencil snapped. She reacted physically, pencilless hand swinging in frustration and knocking the glass from her table to the floor.

Nick's head whipped involuntarily towards the sound of a spilled glass in the bar. He recognised Cassie's main of blonde hair ducking down to pick up the mess, jerking back to pull her sketchbook out of the puddle, jerk back to catch the rolling glass and back again to curse at the dripping liquid from her curling pages.

The bar wasn't full but it was full enough for her to get away with drinking alone in a booth to encourage more vivid and helpful visions.

Nick slid into the seat across from her. She put napkins from the table between the pages and avoided looking at him.

"Cassie." He began.

"Nick, you shouldn't keep trying to stop me from unlocking my full potential." She lay one hand over one forearm and attempted to be very civil, and even managed to wrap her lips around each syllable of her sentence, albeit slowly.

"On the contrary," he said and pushed a tray of shots he had brought with him towards her, "I'm taking a new angle at operation Keep Cassie Sober."

Her face was scrunched and her mouth hung open as if to protest but her hand and fingers mirrored his as he took a shot of tequila from the tray and held it up.

"Bottoms up." He grinned and threw it back. She watched him with narrowed eyes to catch him out on any slight of hand but no, he drank the shot and lifted another.

"Well come on then." He encouraged her, tilting the shot glass in her hand with his and hovering his next before his lips. She took the shot this time, eyes on Nick, looking for a trick. It took five shots for her to believe her eyes. He started to take on a sheen, he leaned back into the chair instead of leaning forward and he wasn't looking around so hard he seemed to betray a twitch.

"I like this new attitude, Nick." She raised another shot, "To finding my mother,"

"And taking down division." He responded.

They tossed the liquid down their throats.

Nick thought he was supporting Cassie along the road home, but they were both more or less kept up right by good fortune and counterbalancing each other's staggering walks.

"Oh my God, Nick, Nick I feel _terrible_ , I mean, Nick, my legs…"

They stumbled into the air B & B they had been in for a couple of days. Nick want to the kitchen for water for each of them while Cassie crawled to her travel bag – a medium sized duffel bag – and dragged its contents out to open a new sketchbook and fill it with much of the same as was in the other.

"Cass' just leave it,"

"I just need to,"

"Cassie, come on, you'll remember tomorrow. I hope."

"Its just the same thing!" Cassie shouted. She stabbed the page and broke another pencil. "What does she even _have to do_ with my mom! Nick what is this! What is this!" she started ripping pages from the ruined notebook. "Why am I such a shitty seer! Why can't I just _see!_ "

Nick went to Cassie and kneeled by her so that she was eventually holding on to him, sobbing into the crook of his elbow. He consoled her as best as he could, again. It had been five months since _. There was no word from Kira in all that time, no useful visions, not even anyone following or looking for them. _ was starting to feel like a dream. Nick looked to all of the pictures and saw the same figure, a number of different angles, at a coffee shop with an armed and legged coffee bean paddling a row-boat in the coffee inside a half rendering of a coffee mug.

"It's not just that, Nick, but not seeing my mom… I can't… How she looks… I'm not sure I remember what she looks like." And with that Cassie began to really sob, to bunch his t-shirt in her grip and curl into herself. He just patted her back. Tried to make a promise that wouldn't be too hard to keep. "You'll be okay. You'll be okay, Cassie."

Cassie was up before Nick. She was at the table with coffee and toast. She looked almost fresh compared to him. He dragged his feet passing the door for the small kitchen, and she got up to make him a coffee. When he returned she slid it in front of her. She finished a sketch as he grumbled into the mug and then pushed it towards him. "I know who she is."

"Do you…" he crushed his eyes together at the searing pain in his brain, "know where to find her?"

She tapped her pencil on the little coffee doodle again.

"How are you not suffering?" he asked the mug. She lifted her mug only for it to slip through her fingers and tap the table.

"I think I'm still drunk."

"Who is she?"

"Larabell."

"Lara Bell? We could search the phonebook –"

"Lame. That's what the internet if for Grandpa."

"I mean _online_."

"I doubt she'll be that easy to find. Larabell is her _first_ name and as clever as it might be for her to make up an alias like that," Cassie sighed deeply both frustrated with how long they'd been searching and how obtuse her visions were being, as well as fighting disorientation she was feeling, "she used to be held by Division. She's hiding too."

"Well if we find this coffee place, we find her."

"If it even _is_ a coffee place. This could be a manufacturing logo or an obscure piece of art in some post-modern museum on the other side of the world."

"We'll start with the most obvious assumption." He flicked through her sketches. Some were just of her mom in Division, curled up on a bed, facing away. The rest were this Larabell and the coffee sketch. "That looks a lot like something you'd see next to a coffee place's name.

"I haven't seen a name."

"We have to start somewhere."

For two weeks they followed a coffee crawl. There was still a week's worth of coffee shops to go, but Cassie had started drawing a Henry Fuseli, 'Titania and Bottom', or something akin it enough for a coffee shop google search. In _Steam Boat Coffee_ Nick nudged Cassie on their approach, as someone wearing a bomber jacket with 'Titania and Bottom' printed on the back entered the coffee place. Upon entry she nudged him into noticing the mural on the wall of the half rendered teacup and the little animated coffee-bean paddling across it on a boat on the far wall. This was the place. As they waited in the queue, Cassie indicated one of the servers, or baristas. It, was Larabell. Nick compared Larabell to his memory of Cassie's drawings. Her hair was red and choppy, just like Cassie's frantic pencil scores. Her eyes were brown, framed in more brown eye-shadow and glasses, not like in the picture. She wore a tight cream t-shirt over grey longsleeves and a black apron. Suddenly her fluid coffee making and order taking slowed and her smile collapsed. Someone was whispering into her ear and she didn't appear to like the news. She clapped the speaker on the shoulder, pointed at a few coffee mugs, paper cups and customers, and then disappeared to the back. She was gone long enough for Nick and Cassie to get to the front of the queue, order teas (now that they had consumed more coffee than anyone might want to in a month), and standby the finished coffee unit. Cassie saw someone rise from a seat and went for it, Nick waited with a pimply, gangly teenager listening to slipknot too loud in his ears and an off-orange skirt-suited woman with a tight bun at the crown of her head shouting into the little microphone dangling from the wire attached to her left ear. Above the cacophony of teaspoons tapping ceramic, steam being pressured into milk, and mid-volume conversation, a struggle was beginning to make itself known from the back. The voices gradually lowered and the teaspoons stilled but the steam kept screaming. Larabell burst from behind the counter and ran past Nick to the doors. Someone from behind the counter shouted her name. Most people just stilled to watch, except for two men with gym bags in high ankle socks and pristine new trainers. They stood to catch Larabell who punched one, pressed her palm to the head of the other and then placed her palm on the forehead of the second as he reorientated himself. Nick and Cassie looked to each other, Nick not knowing what she was doing, and Cassie answering by tapping on her temple and miming 'memory'. Sure enough the two men now looked dazed and confused with no desire to imped Larabell. Nick was pushed out of the way though, presumably by the people who had been waiting in the back for her. They were in black suits with white shirts and Nick and Cassie were both willing to bet they were Division. Three more black suits entered the coffee shop and the two from the back grabbed Larabell's shoulders. Nick grabbed the freshest coffee and tossed it at one of their back's. Larabell felt the scolding plashes that reached her back but twisted her free arm to push the one still holding her against the display cabinet. Nick pushed the coffee-stained suit into the others and Cassie was suddenly by his side bringing a tall glass of something pale brown down on the one Suit who hadn't been hindered by Nick's shove. She brought it down bottom first and it made a hollow sound on the skull of its target.

Larabell's hand wrapped around Cassie's wrist and pulled her towards the back. They sprinted through the cramped storage/break space and Lara grabbed a locked blue box from the counter as she went. Nick was hot on their heels, but so was Division. Lara didn't stop but kept looking out for more of Division. She saw them and dived into the next shop's back door. It was a car outlet. She made her way out of the back room, through a waiting area straight to the car floor. Division operatives were running past the window for the entrance. She got into a Bugatti Veyron and when Nick and Cassie were in the back she locked the doors and started fiddling beneath the wheel housing.

Division and the carsales(wo)men were all at the door, patting the windows and shouting at her. She sang to herself. Cassie and Nick could only watch and pray. The engine roared and she ran over two Division operatives and through the glass window onto the street. She obeyed no traffic law and refused to stop for two hours.


	2. Chapter 2

"Okay," Larabell began when she felt at a safe enough distance from Division to begin introductions. They were all three still in the car, and she had left the packed city roads for wide and winding country roads. "We can talk now."

"Hi Lara." Cassie said sweetly, head in her notepad, scratching at it with pencils.

"Cassie. Is this your boyfriend?"

Cassie and Nick spoke at once,

"That's disgusting,"

"It's not like that."

Lara laughed at them through her wing mirror. "Yeah, I thought you were too old for her too. What's your name, stranger?"

"I'm Nick. It's nice to meet you. So who was that back there?"

"Division."

"Who else?" Cassie chimed.

"You're a freak too?" Lara called over her shoulder.

"I'm a Mover."

"Mnemonic."

"A what?"

"Mnemonic." Cassie told him, "She can erase memories."

"I was going to erase yours, in fact."

"That won't be necessary." He insisted.

"It's okay, I make a habit of not altering my freak-cousins. Mind if I put the radio on?"

"Not at all." Nick called. She pressed a few buttons, turned a few dials and tried to work through the in-built tablet. She overtook a car jerkily to avoid crashing into another and some rock music had her tapping her fingers on the wheel. She started adjusting her overall seating position. Nick leaned over to Cassie, "She can hotwire a car."

"You can fix street gambling."

"How do you know her?"

"My mom sent me to the same place she was being kept before she was taken by division."

"Foster care?"

"A safe house, she had been run over fleeing Division and was completely bed ridden when I arrived. I was confined inside, being a hot target for Division at the time and she was the only other person there. We spent a lot of time together. I still don't know much about her, though."

"Oh I love this song!" she turned up Fleetwood Mac, 'Big Love' and started singing along.

After their two hour drive away from Division, she pulled over at a field and took the tin box she'd stolen out of the car. Cassie and Nick got out and stretched their legs, watching as Lara scanned the ground for a big rock with curiosity. She crouched down and brought the box onto the ground hard. The rock landed on the lock, bending the tin in and unhinging the lock. With a strong pry from her hands it sprang open. A few coins got loose. She picked up the few around her and started pocketing the many notes from the tin, then the coins. She stood and as she approached Nick and Cassie, she counted the notes. She held out a small bundle to them,

"That's to get you wherever home is."

"We're not leaving, Lara." Cassie told her, flipping to a page of Lara's image in her book and holding it out for her to see. Lara took it.

"What does this mean?"

"It means we find you, we find my mom."

"She still in Division?"

Cassie nodded. Lara turned to Nick,

"And what's you're stake in all of this?"

"I go where Cassie goes."

"I see." She handed Cassie back the book, pocketed the cash she had offered. "Come on then, I have to go to a locker back in _ and get some stuff."

She started walking and Nick and Cassie followed.

An hour or so along that road and down one they hadn't taken driving, Lara spotted a car for sale in a driveway amidst a farming field of some kind. She brokered its release and when she had driven that close enough to a rail station, she parked it up and used the remaining cash to buy them all tickets back to _. She watched little growing Cassie and Nick, an unlikely duo, while he folded his arms and rested his eyes, and she scribbled, then hesitated, looked at nothing for a long time and started again, only to hesitate. Lara was about to comfort Cassie when Nick spoke, eyes still shut,

"Cass' just stop forcing it, there are too many players on the board for you to get a good enough read."

"It's all changing so fast." Cassie said, her eyes on Lara's chest.

"What's that look?" Lara asked, suspecting Cassie wasn't just lost in thought staring at her.

"What look?" Cassie asked, looking out the window. When the train went through a tunnel, Lara noticed Cassie was still staring at her chest just via her reflection. It had been a while, she needed to earn the girl's trust again, so she let Cassie stare, hoping it was a vision in which Lara wasn't doing her wrong somehow.

In the train station, at the lockers, Lara pulled out a large camping backpack, set it on the ground and pulled out a pair of brown boots which she hastily kicked off her back flats for, she pulled a dress out next, a red longleeve that hung to her knees and made her smile and say, "Glad I shaved my legs today." She pulled off the cream and grey tops she wore, exposing her thin black bra, ample cleavage that wasn't crushed, a little waist and crooked scars on her side and shoulder. Nick absorbed all of this quickly as he twisted away both to shield her from others with his torso and give her some privacy. As she pulled on the red dress and pulled off her jeans, she smirked at Cassie, "Is he always this shy?"

"No," she replied, "I had to train it into him."

"Respect." Lara nodded, offering her knuckled for Cassie to bump while she crammed her old clothes into a plastic bag. She lastly pulled out a black hooded zipper, wrapped it around her waist, shrugged into the bag straps and started walking. As she walked she stuffed the bag into a bin.

"Where are we going now?" Cassie asked, keeping pace.

"We need a car, we can't get a ticket in here or go to the busses because they'll be looking for me there,"

"You mean us." Nick corrected.

"Maybe. There's an entrance to the mall here, I can get us keys to a car in the multi-thing."

"Then what?" Cassie asked.

"Drive until I have a better idea. Listen, are you sure you two want to come? Actually, are you sure you guys want to go for your mom?"

"Yes." Cassie promised.

"Why?"

"It's kind of a long story."

"It's a long enough walk, this isn't a little mall or car park we're going to."

"Have you heard about Hong Kong?" Nick asked.

"It's an Asian place, right?" she replied, smirking.

"I'll take that as a no."

They entered the mall and Lara pulled a phone from her bag. She mumbled about not being sure of a number. Then about it ringing. Voicemail. "Thank god! I got it right! Hi babe, listen I uh, I have to go and I don't know if I'm coming back. Help yourself to my stuff, my past just caught right up with me. And, and move on. I can't say I'm ecstatic at the idea of someone else's… you know what, nevermind, I'm going to be strong and cut the… No wait shit, I want her keys… Delete message, yes." She assumed texting, "Are. You. At. Work. Love. Babe. Send. Carry on."

"Hong Kong," Nick continued, "that's where we were five months ago, that's how we met. Long story short we interrupted Division's retrieval of…"

"His on-again-off-again girlfriend." Cassie supplied.

"They gave her something. Something they've been trying to get one of us to take and not die for years."

"Big black syringe thingy?"

"Yes, how do you know that?" Cassie gushed, hoping that meant they really _were_ closer to finding her mother.

"They gave me that same stuff." She said and turned straight into a lingerie store.


End file.
